gah1950 wrote:hello chainmaker.i can remember well the incident of the lorraine crane,it was doing a tandem lift of one of the girders on the walnut tree viaduct at taffs well nr cardiff.not sure of the crane that was basically sat on the a470 but during the lift the lorraine was pulled off the old railway track above and landed on the taff valley floor i cant remember any one getting seriously hurt in the incident. the main contractor was christiani shand and it was around 1969/1970.graham.

I have a small piece of Cine film footage showing the aftermath of this incident as well as some of these huge cranes. I'm planning on uploading to YouTube. Let me know if your interested.

gah1950 wrote:hello chainmaker.i can remember well the incident of the lorraine crane,it was doing a tandem lift of one of the girders on the walnut tree viaduct at taffs well nr cardiff.not sure of the crane that was basically sat on the a470 but during the lift the lorraine was pulled off the old railway track above and landed on the taff valley floor i cant remember any one getting seriously hurt in the incident. the main contractor was christiani shand and it was around 1969/1970.graham.

I have a small piece of Cine film footage showing the aftermath of this incident as well as some of these huge cranes. I'm planning on uploading to YouTube. Let me know if your interested.

Hello I'm Jim Read used to work in the stores at R&W B'ham started in about '65 I think after that bad winter.

I remember talking to John (can't remember his last name) who was in the cab of that Lorain and after asking him what had happened I said what a good job it was LHD he wouldn't have been able to jump out if it had been RHD.

Another story about the Mack Truck that Ron Damms drove.

Ron had displaced Ernie Shaw as the No1 driver and didn't Ernie know about it! Ernie was the gateman, every time Ron moved back and forth to get out of the gate and up the drive (it was practically a right angle) Ernie would do the w**k** sign at him. One day this got the better of Ron, he jumped out of the cab threw the keys at Ernie and told him to do it.

There was a 38RB on the back, Ernie backed it up to RR's window and told him what he was going to do, and everyone else was hanging out of the office windows having heard the commotion.

Ernie set off quite quickly and swept around the sharp bend without pausing, I was standing by the gatehouse and the track pads of the 38RB just scraped the brickwork. Ernie got out threw the keys to Ron and walked back into the without saying anything, there was much cheering, laughter and applause.

on the Hollywood bypass from the Maypole to Wythall 1968 r&w earthmoving .Frank Wotton works manager, agood shovel driver, put me on a d8 and box for a day to cover for absent driver. my dad 30yrs on tractor/scrapers had never towed an open bowl cat box. he didnot speak to me for three days, must have been because i was 15 years old. Peter lind went bust on this job.

Hi Martin, You are quite correct, R&W did have an earthmoving section, with D8s And 435 boxesGerald Box (who is still around) was general manager of their earthmoving buisness. He however eventualy left them, and joined Dick Hampton as Contract manager, ic the Markfield section of the M1

gah1950 wrote:hello chainmaker.i can remember well the incident of the lorraine crane,it was doing a tandem lift of one of the girders on the walnut tree viaduct at taffs well nr cardiff.not sure of the crane that was basically sat on the a470 but during the lift the lorraine was pulled off the old railway track above and landed on the taff valley floor i cant remember any one getting seriously hurt in the incident. the main contractor was christiani shand and it was around 1969/1970.graham.

I have a small piece of Cine film footage showing the aftermath of this incident as well as some of these huge cranes. I'm planning on uploading to YouTube. Let me know if your interested.